OLED LG PHILPS and Matsushita Konica sitting position

In the past year, OLED lighting market has been a sort of finishing, Panasonic has given up the ambition of OLED lighting manufacturing, although just a few years ago it was a record holder of the championship. PHILPS lighting has also recently abandoned OLED, the U.S. OLED light engine and panel manufacturing company OLEDWorks to acquire part of its OLED light source device business.

OLED vs LED

Market driven

Although in the past year OLED has an extraordinary performance, but the performance is still very poor compared to LED, efficiency (lumen / watt), cost ($/ KLM) and life are far behind.

OLED enterprises are facing a major challenge is the difference, the best way is to truly achieve large and flexible. But with the technical challenges of flexible packaging technology, new applications require imagination and creativity, driven by demand.

Source: U.S. Department of energy and IDTechEx

PHILPS lighting will sell OLED does not seem to be an accident. PHILPS has been trying to overcome the rigid glass-to-glass manufacturing, do not consider flexibility, and has been trying to achieve high brightness OLED panel, which has been a weak point compared to OLED LED.

Panasonic has mostly focused on rigid plate, although it has just demonstrated a flexible product sample. Now decided to reduce the loss, stop the OLED manufacturing business, which will also be dissolved with Idemitsu Kosan (Japan Sanyo Electric Corporation, phosphorescent material supplier) of the joint venture, Matsushita has canceled and SONY jointly developed OLED tv.

Today, LG chemical and Konica Minolta is the last lonely dancer, respectively, said invest $180 million and $100 million to set up production lines. Konica Minolta is expected to be able to achieve a monthly production capacity of 1 million panels, LG chemical is expected in 2017 will be the first on-line Gen-5 plant. At present, LG chemistry is also actively reducing its price of $200 per thousand lumens.

The two companies have been using the "flexible" the right strategy, the LG chemical was originally developed as a thin glass, and has now switched to a transparent substrate polyamide thin (0.33 mm), light weight (less than 8 grams). LG launched the industry's first "truly bendable" plastic OLED display with a radius of curvature of up to 1.18 inches (30 mm). In March of this year (), LG provided 2850 OLED panels for a nightclub and provided the Seoul National Library with 1000.

Even through the flexible packaging technology Konica vertical development, without relying on other enterprises. Konica Minolta now create panel thickness 0.33 mm, weight 4 g (size 150~160 mm), radius of curvature of 10mm. In April this year, it provided 15000 OLED panels for the Japanese tulip festival.

However, the two companies also suffered internal business conflict (for example, LED division, OLED) industry's success depends on the strength of their determination and the mid face of continued losses, they hope to take the long view.

LG chemical's new OLED product DIY kit, which contains all the necessary accessories, allows users to create intelligent, flexible design in a few minutes. The DIY kit includes one or two 100 mm panels, connectors, connectors, button switches, power supplies and instructions.

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